Modi has a definite soft spot for the man who would later stall the film Parzania. The regard is mutual
Babu Bajrangi

AUGUST 10, 2007

TEHELKA: The day Patiya happened, didn’t Modi support you?

Bajrangi: He made everything all right, otherwise who would have had the strength… It was his hand all the way… If he’d told the police to do differently, they would have f****d us…. they could have… they had full control…

TEHELKA: They had control?

Bajrangi: They were very much in control all over the city, all over Gujarat… [But] for two days, Narendrabhai was in control… from the third day… a lot of pressure came from the top… Sonia-wonia and all came here…

• • •

TEHELKA: Didn’t Narendrabhai come to meet you [in jail]?

Bajrangi: If Narendrabhai comes to meet me, he’ll be in deep trouble… I didn’t expect to see him… Even today, I don’t expect it…

TEHELKA: Did he ever talk to you over the phone?

Bajrangi: That way I do get to speak to him… but not just like that… The whole world starts singing…

TEHELKA: But when you were absconding, then he…..

Bajrangi: Hmm… I did speak to him twice or thrice…

TEHELKA: He’d encourage you…

Bajrangi: Marad aadmi hai [he’s a real man], Narendrabhai… If he were to tell me to tie a bomb to myself and jump… it wouldn’t take even a second… I could sling a bomb around me and jump wherever I was asked to… for Hindus…

TEHELKA: Had he not been there,then Naroda Patiya, Gulbarg etc…

Bajrangi:Wouldn’t have happened.Would’ve been very difficult.

• • •

SEPTEMBER 1, 2007

TEHELKA: Did Narendrabhai come to Patiya the day of the massacre?

Bajrangi: Narendrabhai came to Patiya… He could not make it to the place of the incidents because there were commando-phamandos with him… But he came to Patiya, saw our enthusiasm and went away… He left behind a really good atmosphere…

TEHELKA: Said you were all blessed…

Bajrangi: Narendrabhai had come to see that things didn’t stop the next day… He went all around Ahmedabad, to all the places where the miyas [Muslims] were, to the Hindu areas… told people they’d done well and should do more…

• • •

Bajrangi: [After the massacre] the commissioner issued orders [against me]… I was told to leave my home… I ran away… Narendrabhai kept me at… the Gujarat Bhavan at Mount Abu for fourand- a-half months… After that, [I did] whatever Narendrabhai told me to… Nobody can do what Narendrabhai has done in – Gujarat… If I did not have the support of Narendrabhai, we would not have been able to avenge [Godhra]… [After it was over,] Narendrabhai was happy, the people were happy, we were happy… I went to jail and came back… and returned to the life I’d led before.

• • •

Bajrangi: Narendrabhai got me out of jail…… He kept on changing judges…. He set it up so as to ensure my release, otherwise I wouldn’t have been out yet… The first judge was one Dholakiaji… He said Babu Bajrangi should be hanged — not once, but four-five times, and he flung the file aside… Then came another who stopped just short of saying I should be hanged… Then there was a third one… By then, four-and-a-half months had elapsed in jail; then Narendrabhai sent me a message… saying he would find a way out… Next he posted a judge named Akshay Mehta… He never even looked at the file or anything…. He just said [bail was] granted… And we were all out… We were free….. For this, I believe in God… We are ready to die for Hindutva…
Nov 03, 2007

Neither loot nor rape, this Bajrang Dal leader had only murder on his mind

SEPTEMBER 1, 2007

Bajrangi: My role was as follows: I was the first to start the
[Naroda] Patiya operation… We and the local residents were all
together. Patiya is just half a kilometre away from my home… I had
gone to Godhra when it happened… I could not bear what I saw… The next
day, we gave them a fitting reply…

TEHELKA: What were you unable to tolerate in Godhra?

Bajrangi: Any person who saw the Godhra kaand [massacre] would have
felt like just killing them at once, hacking them apart… that’s how it
was…

TEHELKA: You were there?

Bajrangi: Yes, yes, I was with them… So the Godhra kaand happened and
after what I saw, I just came back to Naroda and we took revenge.

TEHELKA: How could you organize it all in such short time?

Bajrangi: Little time… We organized everything that night itself… We
mobilised a team of 29 or 30 people… Those who had guns, we went to
them that night itself and told them to give us their guns… If anyone
refused, I told them I would shoot them the next day, even if they
were Hindu… So people agreed to part with whatever cartridges and guns
they had… In this way, we collected 23 guns. But nobody died of
gunshots… What happened was this: we chased them and were able to
scare them into a huge khadda [pit]. There we surrounded them and
finished everything off… Then, at 7 o’clock, we announced…

TEHELKA: This was in Patiya? That’s what it’s called, isn’t it?

Bajrangi: Yes, yes, Patiya.

TEHELKA: Please describe the area.

Bajrangi: In Patiya, there is an ST [State Transport] workshop with a
huge wall beside it; next to this wall, Patiya begins… Opposite
Patiya, there is a masjid and beside it is a sprawling khadda… That’s
where we killed them all… At 7 o’clock, I called the home minister and
also Jaideepbhai [Jaideep Patel, VHP general secretary] and told them
how many people had been killed and said that things were now in their
hands… I don’t know if they did anything, though… At 2.30 in the
morning, an FIR was lodged against me… The FIR said I was there… the
police commissioner even issued orders to shoot me at sight…

TEHELKA: Who, Narendrabhai?

Bajrangi: The commissioner ordered…

• • •

Bajrangi: We and the Chharas carried out the Patiya massacre… After
that, we all went to jail… People gave us a lot of money after we were
jailed… I am rich, so I have no worries, but the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
leaders didn’t care for those who were poor and had no money. Even
from jail I was telling them [the VHP] to look after their families,
do something for the accused. They provided for them for some four to
six months, after that all help was stopped… They had promised to
fight our cases in court… but till today, nobody has done a thing…
Pravinbhai [Togadia, VHP international general secretary] had promised
this openly… and he had also said that if there were any problems at
their home or any loss [he would take care of them]… but no one knows
where they put all the money they collected… Nobody was given any
money… for five to seven months, they gave rations, but nothing apart
from that…

TEHELKA: You were in touch only with Jaideepbhai?

Bajrangi: Only Jaideep was talking to me from the VHP.

TEHELKA: The day the Muslims were killed…

Bajrangi: I spoke to Jaideepbhai 11 or 12 times… aur humne tabiyat se
kaata… Haldighati bana di thi [and we killed at will, turned the place
into Haldighati]… And I am proud of it, if I get another chance, I
will kill even more…

TEHELKA: Where was Jaideepbhai camping then?

Bajrangi: Jaideepbhai was sitting at Dhanwantri, which is Pravinbhai’s
dispensary, he was there… in Bapunagar… There he was and I didn’t even
tell him that we were going to do this… In Naroda and Naroda Patiya,
we didn’t spare a single Muslim shop, we set everything on fire, we
set them on fire and killed them… That’s what we did… Up till then,
they didn’t know what was happening; when they got to hear of how many
had been killed, they got scared…

• • •
Photo: Paras Shah

Bajrangi: There is a distance of about half a kilometre between Naroda
[Patiya] and Naroda Gaon… We did a lot at both places… must have
butchered not less than… Then we dumped the corpses into a well… At
first, I didn’t talk [This was TEHELKA’s fourth meeting with him.] I
thought… Many journalists and all kinds of people and come ask me if I
was in the Patiya incident… I tell them I was not involved, I was
quite far away admitted in a hospital…

• • •

TEHELKA: Do you know Gordhan Zadaphia has revolted?… During the Patiya
massacre, what did he say when you spoke to him?

Bajrangi: I spoke to Gordhan Zadaphia… I told him everything that had
happened… He told me to leave Gujarat and go into hiding… I asked what
he meant, but he told me to run away and to not ever say anywhere that
we had talked…

• • •

TEHELKA: Tell us how it was all done… revolvers… cylinders…

Bajrangi: The cylinders were theirs [the Muslims’]… Whichever house we
entered, we just grabbed the cylinder and fired at it, and, dhadak,
they exploded… We had guns in any case… I can’t tell you what a good
time it was… But four of our activists died in it… No hearing took
place even in that…

TEHELKA: Did you climb to the top of a masjid and tie a pig there?

Bajrangi:We rammed an entire tanker into it… the tanker was fully
laden… We rammed that tanker inside…

Bajrangi: It was diesel… We drove a whole diesel tanker in and then
set [the mosque] on fire…

TEHELKA: Meaning, it was the tanker explosion which set Patiya on fire?

Bajrangi: In the masjid…

TEHELKA: In the masjid…

Bajrangi: As for the rest of it, I was in charge at the time… Whatever
I wanted to do, I did…

TEHELKA: At the pit, was oil… Those people had gathered there…

Bajrangi: It was a huge pit… You could enter it from one side but you
couldn’t climb out at the other end… They were all there together…
They started clinging to each other… Even while they were dying, they
told each other, you die too, what are you going to be saved for, you
die too… so the number of deaths increased.

TEHELKA: Then people poured oil in…

Bajrangi: Oil and burning tyres…

TEHELKA: Where did the oil come from?

Bajrangi: Oh that… We had lots of material with us… we filled lots of
jerrycans in advance… From the petrol pump, the night before… Petrol
pump owners gave us petrol and diesel for free…

• • •

TEHELKA: Muslims were hacked to pieces…

Bajrangi: Hacked, burnt, set on fire, many things were done… many… We
believe in setting them on fire because these bastards say they don’t
want to be cremated, they’re afraid of it, they say this and that will
happen to them… I have just one wish… one last wish…. Let me be
sentenced to death… I don’t want to be incarcerated… I don’t care if
I’m hanged… Give me two days before my hanging and I will go and have
a field day in Juhapura [a Muslim dominated are], where seven or eight
lakh of these people stay… I will finish them off … Let a few more of
them die… At least 25-50,000 should die…

TEHELKA: How many witnesses have testified against you?

Bajrangi: Fourteen Muslims and 16 policemen… Out of the 14 Muslims,
some have moved to Juhapura… They’ve left Patiya, they don’t have the
guts to stay there, defying us… The rest have gone to Karnataka… They
got money after all, Rs 7 lakh each… Narendrabhai never said how much
they would be given… He announced [the compensation package] then gave
out cheques of Rs 20,000 each and that’s where things got stuck…
Afterwards, he gave nothing to anyone… But then the Central government
supported them…

• • •

TEHELKA: In other words, the way [you] have killed will go down in history.

Bajrangi: Arrey hamari FIR me likha gaya hai… ek woh pregnant thi,
usko to humne chir diya thha b*******d sala… Unko dikhaya ki kya hota
hai… ki hum log ko tumne maara to hum tumko kya pratikaar de sakte
hain… hum khichdi kadhi wale nahin hai [It has been written in my FIR…
there was this pregnant woman, I slit her open, sisterf****r… Showed
them what’s what… what kind of revenge we can take if our people are
killed… I am no feeble rice-eater]… didn’t spare anyone… they
shouldn’t even be allowed to breed… I say that even today… Whoever
they are, women, children, whoever… Nothing to be done with them but
cut them down. Thrash them, slash them, burn the bastards… Hindus can
be bad… Hindus can be bad, and I’m saying that because, as I see it,
Hindus are as wicked as those people are… Many of them wasted time
looting… Arrey, [the idea is] don’t keep them alive at all, after that
everything is ours…

TEHELKA: And some people also raped…

Bajrangi: No, there were no rapes…

TEHELKA: One or two Chharas may have…

Bajrangi: If some Chharas took some women, that’s a different matter…
We were marching in groups… There was no place to rape anyone there…
Everyone was on a killing spree… we were killing, hacking… There were
lanes where we had to face Muslims… there would be a confrontation,
they’d fight back with all their strength…The moment we’d killed a
few, we’d move on… In this melée, if some girl was trying to run away
and if a Chhara caught her, then that’s another matter… That day, it
was like what happened between Pakistan and India… There were bodies
everywhere… it was a sight to be seen, but it wasn’t something to be
filmed, in case it got into someone’s hands… There was a video-wala
there, some mediawala, we set him on fire too… Lots of those miyas
[Muslims] deceived us… They’d chant Jai Mata Di and get away… that
happened too… they’d put tilaks on their foreheads and shout Jai Shri
Ram, Jai Mata Di….

Bajrangi: Yes, he was… All this cutting and killing happened behind
the SRP camp… The ones who weren’t in the pit, they ran and got into
the SRP compound… The SRP jawans there were driving them away… when
the officer came in his vehicle and said take everyone inside… He was
in command… an officer… So, lots of people were saved this way… at
least 500 were rescued… Otherwise would they have all gone too… The
officer was also fired at… He is also a witness against me…

TEHELKA: But then Narendrabhai promoted him and…

Bajrangi: Silenced him… So, there was good work done in Patiya. Today
too I am fighting against Muslims and will continue to do so… I have
nothing to do with politics… What I say is this: the VHP is an
organisation… a Hindu organisation… Our politics should be limited to
killing Muslims, beating them up…

TEHELKA: How do you feel after you have killed Muslims…

Bajrangi: Maza aata hai na, saheb [I enjoy it]… I came back after I
killed them them, called up the home minister and went to sleep… I
felt like Rana Pratap, that I had done something like Maharana Pratap…
I’d heard stories about him, but that day I did what he did myself.
Nov 3, 2007

New Delhi, August 29 : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has decided to refer the Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill (LARR) 2012 to the Group of Ministers, as Cabinet could not agree on the provisions of the Bill as it stands.It is unfortunate. Going by the news reports Prime Minister is paying attention to the objections raised by the Ministry of Commerce, Civil Aviation, Urban Development, Highways and others, while the voices of farmers organisations, social movements and concerns raised by the Ministries of Social Justice and Empowerment, Tribal Affairs, Housing and Urban Development are being ignored. This shows clearly the priorities of the UPA government and exposes the claims of the Ministers sitting in the Cabinet and claiming to represent interests of farmers, workers and landless. Their constituency needs good roads to their villages, schools and hospitals and not airports and 6 – 8 lane highways like Yamuna Expressway which are profit making ventures for corporates directly or through public-private joint ventures.

The referring of the Bill to the Group of Ministers is a clear indication of the pressure from the corporate houses who want to continue their profit making ventures. All party Parliamentary Standing Committee has given its recommendations which should be used to improve the Bill rather than dilute it further. It should act as the guidelines to the UPA government to bring the revised Bill sooner in the Parliament rather than continue the forcible land acquisitions for the private corporations.NAPM demands that the new GoM must not be headed by anti-farmer, pro-corporate minister, it has to be either tribal affairs, rural development or social justice empowerment minister.

Ignoring the Committee recommendations, the Bill has widened the definitions of ‘Public Purpose’, beyond acceptable limits which even British never did, by creating a category of ‘public interest’ projects, fraudulently. Forcibly acquiring land and everything attached to land (crores of rupees worth minerals or invaluable ground water) from farmers for the profit – making millionaires is the grand design of the Indian rulers in collusion with the corporations.

The Bill has gone through certain improvements based on suggestions received from various social movements and recommendations of the Standing Committee, yet it falls short of what is required to protect natural and human resource-based communities and uphold truly democratic development planning. This is the view of the masses, not the corporates. On which side are the government and political parties? They can’t sit on the fence when farms are burning !

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In “The Delhi Car Bombing: How the Police Built a False Case”, a three-part series beginning today, award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter dissects the Delhi police accusation against an Indian journalist and four Iranians of involvement in the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli embassy car.

Washington – New Delhi police officials have released hundreds of pages of documents from their investigation into the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli Embassy car. The documents aimed to show that a well-known Indian Muslim journalist aided an Iranian conspiracy to plan and carry out the bombing.

But a review by IPS of the evidence filed in the case suggests that the Indian journalist accused in the case has been framed by the police, at least in part to implicate the Iranians in the terror plot.

The “charge sheet” on the embassy car bombing filed by the “Special Cell” (SC) of the Delhi police July 31 claims Indian journalist Syed Mohommed Ahmad Kazmi confessed to helping officials from Iran plan the bombing plot in return for payments totalling 5,500 U.S. dollars.

It also says that a moped used for reconnaissance by the Iranian said to have carried out the bombing was found in Kazmi’s residence and that forensic bomb-making evidence was discovered in the hotel room of that same Iranian.

But an analysis of the documentation included in the filing reveals that the evidence is highly questionable.

The SC has a long history of cases against alleged terrorists that were rejected by the court as involving framing people and planting false evidence.

Kazmi is an unlikely candidate for participation in an Iranian terrorist plot. A 50-year-old senior Indian journalist, he had his own web-based news service, a regular job as a columnist for the leading Urdu-language weekly and a retainer as Urdu newscaster for India’s state-owned television channel Doordarshan.

He did not need the 5,500 U.S. dollars police claim he received for helping the Iranians plan the bombing. Nor did he need the 2.26 million rupees (40,000 U.S. dollars) in foreign remittances that Delhi police chief B. K. Gupta asserted in a press conference in mid-March that the journalist and his wife had received in their bank accounts. Gupta declared that Kazmi and his wife had been “unable to explain” those remittances.

But Kazmi’s family has produced bank documents showing that the remittances had come from relatives in the UK and Singapore in 2009 and 2010. Furthermore, the “Economic Directorate” of the Indian Police assigned to investigate the remittances could find nothing incriminating in them, the Indian press has reported.

A more serious problem with the SC case is that it depends heavily on Kazmi’s alleged confession of guilt. That confession, consisting of five separate statements between Mar. 6 and 24, is inadmissible as evidence under Indian law on the assumption that police will inevitably coerce those in their custody to make confessions.

Kazmi has denounced all the “disclosure statements” attributed to him as false. He charged in a handwritten petition to the court Apr. 16 that the SC had coerced him into providing his signature on blank pages. He said the police threatened that his family with “dire consequences” if he did not do as they directed.

Except for the very first “disclosure statement” dated Mar. 6, all of them are followed by the handwritten notation “Accused refused to sign”.

Most of the five “disclosures” were clearly written by the Special Cell in order to implicate both Kazmi and three Iranians in the bombing plot. The disclosures make Kazmi appear eager to incriminate himself, even though the police account offers no reason for considering Kazmi a suspect, except that his mobile phone number was said to have been called by a Houshang Afshar Irani, who in turn was said to have been contacted by an Iranian involved in the Feb. 14 explosion in Bangkok.

The disclosure dated Mar. 6 and supposedly given to police before Kazmi was even under arrest confesses to having been informed of the plot for a bombing in Delhi by a Seyed Ali Mahdiansadr during a visit to Tehran in January 2011, and having agreed to help the plotters.

Kazmi is also portrayed in the statement as admitting to having been given a Kinetic brand moped by Irani for safekeeping at his home during the first week in May 2011. The police cite that statement as the justification for immediately arresting him and for allegedly seizing the moped from Kazmi’s residence.

There is good reason to believe that the police had already followed Irani’s trail during his two-week visit to Delhi in late April and early May 2011 and had learned before Kazmi’s arrest that he had purchased a used black Kinetic moped at a commercial showroom in Delhi on Apr. 26.

Kazmi’s family and lawyer Mehmood Pracha say the moped taken away from his residence Mar. 6 was not the one identified in the police “seizure memo”, which has the same identification number as found on the receipt for Irani’s purchase of the scooter, but one left by Kazmi’s brother two years ago and never used during that time.

The memo for the scooter is signed and dated by Deputy Chief of Police Sanjeev Yadav, the senior police official in the SC investigation, and one other officer. It is signed but not dated by a third officer. The fact that Kazmi’s signature is on the document without any date suggests that he signed a blank sheet of paper.

The Kinetic moped is crucial to the SC effort to link Kazmi to Irani’s alleged reconnaissance of the Israeli embassy to prepare for the bombing, because there is no other evidence except Kazmi’s own discredited “disclosures”. But the story about the moped raises serious questions about its plausibility.

It would have made no sense for a terrorist to purchase a moped for that purpose, since Kazmi owned a car that would have made the task far easier as well as more secure.

The alleged turnover of the moped to Kazmi by Irani at the end of his two-week visit makes even less sense, because it suggests that he was planning to use it again for the actual bombing operation. But someone contemplating an operation to affix a magnet bomb to a car would never have considered using a moped for the job. A Kinetic moped normally cannot go faster than 20 miles per hour and is notoriously poor in acceleration, making a getaway for the bomber highly problematic.

In the event, Irani rented a motorcycle when he returned, suggesting that had probably disposed of the moped by reselling it cheaply.

Another sign that the police had trouble linking Kazmi to Irani’s reconnaissance of the Israeli Embassy is the statement attributed to him in one of the “disclosures”. Whenever he met with Irani, his supposed disclosure says, “I used to leave my mobile phone at my residence.”

That sentence was evidently included to explain why a search of Kazmi’s mobile phone records would not reveal any activity in the area where the “disclosure” claims Kazmi and Irani were carrying out reconnaissance of the Israeli Embassy during Irani’s two-week stay.

The police used the same argument in a 2007 terrorism case in which they had alleged that the accused had taken a trip to Kashmir to collect explosives but had left his mobile phone at his guest house.

The Court did not find the assertion credible, however, and threw out the charges.

*This story is the first in a three-part series, “The Delhi Car Bombing: How the Police Built a False Case”, in which award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter dissects the Delhi police accusation against an Indian journalist and four Iranians of involvement in the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli embassy car.

Visit IPS news for fresh perspectives on development and globalization.

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Panaji, Aug 29: More than 70 protesters from Foil Vedanta, South Asia Solidarity Group, Save Goa Campaign and other originations crowded the entrance to controversial FTSE 100 mining company Vedanta Resources’ London AGM on August 28 in an attempt to disrupt the meeting. In Goa and Odisha in India, and Chingola in Zambia where Vedanta operates, parallel demonstrations involving thousands of people affected by the company’s activities took place on 27th & 28 August respectively.

In Goa itself thousands of villagers took to the streets on Monday, August 27 demanding an end to operations at Sesa Goa’s Amona pig iron plant which swamped a 1.5km area with black powder from the plant just last weekend. Sesa Goa is also accused of large scale fraud in Mining operations in Goa. In addition to large scale fraud and illegal mining Vedanta was held responsible for pit wall collapse which drowned a village in toxic mine waste last year. As environmental experts have noted if such activities do not stop Goa may well lose its Heritage status.

Vedanta have been named the ‘world’s most hated company’ by the Independent newspaper for their long list of environmental and human rights crimes for which they are being opposed all over the world. Most famously Vedanta’s plan to mine a mountain sacred to the Dongria Kondh tribe in Orissa, India, has led to mass protests and the Bank of England among others pulling out investments.

Vedanta’s continued donations to India’s two main political parties, the ruling Congress and the right-wing Hindu nationalist BJP. Under the name Anil Agarwal foundation, it also supports projects such the Krishna Avanti Primary school in London partly funded by the I- foundation which has close links to the Hindu supremacist groups.

Protestors at the Lincoln Centre, London where the AGM was held carried placards depicting shocking pictures of Vedanta’s atrocities including the 100 dead at the Korba chimney collapse in 2009. They shouted slogans calling for the arrest of Vedanta chief Anil Agarwal for his major involvement in one of the biggest coal corruption scandal ” Coalgate”, currently rocking India and played noisy drums. Despite these scandals Agarwal gave himself a 16% pay rise this year.

Addressing the protestors in London Samarendra Das from Foil Vedanta said, “Vedanta symbolises the new face of India Incorporated where more than 80% of people do not have enough to live on where as Bollygarchs like Anil Agarwal are allowed a free loot of its resources for their own personal wealth. With popular resistance against Vedanta erupting in Goa, and Odisha and scandals in the Indian parliament over the CAG report, the world is seeing their true colours.”

Two activists dressed as Vedanta executives spilled litres of red paint over a woman covered with a white sheet on the steps of the AGM. After a shortwhile, Anil Agarwal and Vedanta executives arrived in a blacked out car and were unable to enter the AGM. The symbolic action referred to the hundreds who have died either working at or opposing Vedanta’s factories and mines. A 30 foot long banner proclaimed ‘Vedanta: Olympic Champion of Murder, Pollution and Corruption’.

A group from the Save Goa Campaign carried banners showing toxic mine waste floods caused by Vedanta subsidiary Sesa Goa. They called for the British Government to help stop illegal mining by Vedanta and others, as recommended by the Early Day Motion scheduled by John McDonnell MP who also attended the demo.

Internationally acclaimed Goan Environmental activist Claude Alvares who attended the demostration in Goa said, “Vedanta is committed to turning Goa into a graveyard in which it will bury not just the Goans but their environment as well. Almost every mining lease Vedanta is operating violates some environment or mining law, from mining in excess of environment limits to overloading its trucks to distress ordinary folk on Goa’s roads in the mining belt. The company violates its environment clearance conditions with impunity.”

“Never have I seen a company so obsessed with profits that it cannot see the beauty of the place it has settled on to destroy. At the moment, the company has in fact speeded up its mineral extraction because it fears the climate in Goa may turn against mining forever or it may face as grave a setback as its mines in Bellary, Karnataka. Goa government must takeover Vedanta’s mines in retaliation for the environmental havoc this company’s operations have caused. Almost every mining lease Vedanta is operating violates some environment or mining law, from mining in excess of environment limits to overloading its trucks to distress ordinary folk on Goa’s roads in the mining belt. The company violates its environment clearance conditions with impunity. At the helm in Goa is a BJP government which has acknowledged that its party got funding fromVedanta in excess of Rs.400 crores. What chance do those without cash (mother nature included) have in the circumstances?” “

In Bhawanipatna and Lanjigarh in Odisha hundreds of Dongria Kondh tribals whose livelihood is threatened by Vedanta’s plan to mine their sacred mountain rallied alongside farmers and villagers. They called for the final closure of the Lanjigarh alumina refinery at the foot of the threatened Niyamgiri hills after seven years battle to stop the mine. Last week the company admitted it would have to temporarily close the plant due to lack of local bauxite which has incurred huge annual losses for Vedanta Aluminium.

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With tears of happiness choking them Women Victim Eye witnesses (Jannatchachi, Shakilabano, Faraznabano, Ishrat Jahan, Zuleikha appa and Fatima appa offer Shukrana namaz in Ahmedabad. They wil address a press conference with team of lawyers of Citizens for Justice and Peace and its Secretary Teesta Setalvad at Prashant at 3 pm today.

August 29, 2012

Press Release

Hailing the historic verdict in the Naroda Patiya mass murder case delivered by Judge Jyotsnanbehn Yagnik. Special Sessions Judge in Ahmedabad today by which one senior politician and several conspirators and ring leaders have been convicted, Victim Survivors and CJP welcomed the verdict. In all 32 persons have been convicted including former BJP MLA and minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet, Smt Maya Kodnani, Babu Bajrangi, Bipin Panchal, Ashok Sindhi and Kishan Korani (sitting corporator, accused No 20) have been convicted. Twenty-nine of the accused were acquitted.

The raw courage of the victim witnesses, especially women witnesses who deposed fearlessly while still residing in Naroda Patiya is a reflection of the confidence generated after the Supreme Court monitoring and the protection from Central Paramilitary forces provided by the Supreme Court. CJP had applied to the apex court for protection of eye witnesses. CJP through its legal team advocates Altaf Jidran and Raju Shaikh supervised by senior Adv Yusuf Shaikh provided legal aid to about 70 eyewitnesses since 2009. CJP would like to publicly acknowledge their contribution, also the seniors advocate MM Tirmizi (Gujarat High Court), Mihir Desai (Mumbai) and advocates Kamini Jaiswal (Supreme Court), Sanjay Parikh (Supreme Court), Aparna Bhat (Supreme Court) and Ramesh Pukhrambam (Supreme Court).

Eleven eyewitnesses have deposed in eye witnesses testimonies assigning in detail the role played by Smt Maya Kodnani, in inciting the mob to murder, fifteen witnesses deposed through eye witness testimonies against Babu Bajrangi, 48 witnesses testified to the crimes committed by Suresh @ Langda Chara including the offences of gender violence and rape. (Annexed are the list of witnesses with a brief of their testimonies). The CJP would like to state that it was the evidence through eye witness testimonies that enabled convictions. Corroborative evidence was provided through the phone call records provided by police officer Rahul Sharma and Tehelka’s Operation Kalank. Without eye witness testimonies whoever convictions could not have taken place.

Victim witnesses supported by CJP had also filed separate applications under Section 319 praying for police officer and then first PI KK Mysorewala to be arraigned as accused along with former Commissioner of Police PC Pandey and SRP official Dhantaniya. While the Judge rejected these applications, she has observed in the victim application for compensation for rape and gender violence that the application would be considered in the final judgement.

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A synopsis of the fact finding report on the situation of violence affected people in Kandhamal after four years

One of the most severe communal violence took place in Kandhamal in 2008 following the alleged murder of Swami Laxamananda Saraswati, a front-line leader of Sangh Parivar by the Communist Party of India (Maoists). The violence forced 55000 minority Christians to displace, 5600 homes in 415 villages were looted and burnt down, 38 persons were killed, two women were gangraped, several people were tortured, disabled.

A Fact Finding Team visited 16 villages during 10th to 14th August, 2012; interviewed about fifty persons including victims, witnesses, leaders of different political and social organisations, District Collector and Superintendent of Police and reviewed various documents and records.

Highlights of Observations:

Status of the Livelihood (income source) of Victims and Access to MGNREGS:

Almost all the victims belong to families below poverty line, mostly dependent on daily-wage labor, cultivation and small vending works. After the violence they had to run here and there for their life without any means for livelihoods. After coming back, they found it very difficult to get back their previous livelihood practices. They are not getting labor works in the fields/houses of people from other communities either because of insecurity feeling or not allowed. People are not able to access MNREGS works regularly for alien treatment by Gram Sathi and PRI leaders. People depending on forest product are barred by the other community people to collect these items.

Migration:

Among those survivors who left Kandhamal during violence to other places, at least 10,000 people are yet to return to their respective places. In Bhubaneswar alone, more than five thousand people are struggling to live anyway. Many of those who returned began to migrate, again, as it became quite hard to find viable livelihood options at their locality. Out of fear the minorities of Mlahupanga, Dadingia, Beticola villages who were compelled to shift to other places like Nandagiri of Kandhamal, do not have any dependable sources of income and are planning to migrate outside.

Children’s Education: Many Christian students had to drop their study. Some parents informed that they have sent their kids to outside Kandhamal for study as they feel their children (already undergone traumatic conditions) are not safe inside Kandhamal. The eight years old son of widowed Ludhia Digal is staying at Punjab. However, the team noticed some of violence affected children cleaning the table, washing the plates and serving water in some hotels run by higher caste people in Baliguda, G.Udaigiri, Phulbani children.

Caste Certificate:

Both adivasis and dalits are facing difficulties in obtaining caste certificate. Tahasil officials are issuing certificates to only those who have recommendations from Vishwa Hindu Parisad and Kui Samaj Samanmaya Samiti and other Hindutya groups. In Bagadi, Kandha people failed to get the certificates. In Bhaliapada of Gumamaha Gram Panchyat, many victims complained dalits (Pano) children are deprived of getting admission in the govt. run Ashram Schools or getting stipends for being unable to get a certificate from Tahasil offices. Even if the DM clarifies that there are other ways of assessing caste identity and issuing certificates, the dominance of Sangh Parivar (VHP or KSSS) continues in decisions of Tahasil officials.

Compensation – Housing and Properties

About 5600 people lost their houses during the violence. Odisha government provided Rs.50000.00 for fully-damaged houses and Rs.20000.00 for partially damaged houses. As of now, there are 5% families are yet to get any compensation. Many families, even if they had to replace their house walls and roof fully have been enlisted in the ‘partially damaged houses’. Compared to other states, the compensation for house damage in Orissa is much less. Of course, most of the survivor families could get some additional supports from non-official sources.

The government did not enumerate loss of properties (other than housing) such as household articles, agricultural and forest produces, domestic animals, vital documents (like educational certificates, land records) , agricultural impliments, utensils, clothes, loss of livelihood etc. Average cost of damage of such properties per family came about Rs.200000.00. Many people lamented – it’ll take another generation recuperate their losses. The DM tells – the government does not have a policy to enumerate or compensate such losses.

130 shop keepers who got their shops destroyed they have received a little compensation in comparison to their loss, which is far below the requirement to revive their business.

Almost no compensation (little cases very small compensation) has been given against the damage of institutions such as hospitals, schools, NGOs, churches.

Condition of Government-established Colonies (Ghettos) for victims: When the government failed to take back the people to their respective villages as it did not succeed in providing security there and they put the people in new villages – Nandagiri, Ashirbada colony, Ambedkar colony. Although more than 150 families are made to stay in these colonies, there are opportunities for their livelihoods and no adequate facilities for water and sanitation. A sizable section of the victims migrate to other states.

Christian families in Beticola village were threatened not to return to their village unless they convert into Hinduism. Ajay Mallick, Trashant Malick and Gochhi Nayak (63) and others had to leave back their moveable and immovable properties and livelihood and came to Nandagiri.

Justice Delivery:

Against the total 3232 criminal complaints lodged by the victims, while the district police acknowledged 1541 cases, only 828 were registered as FIR (First Information Reports)s by the Police. Out of 245 cases disposed by the Fast Track Court, convictions have been made in 73 cases and in 172 cases no convictions have been made. 267 cases are pending for trial. Total persons acquitted as of now are 2433 and only 452 persons have been convicted.

Out of total 30 murder cases heard till now at the Fast Track Court, only in 2 cases (6 Persons) have been given the punishment for life-imprisonment and in 5 other cases lesser punishment have been given. But, in the rest 22 cases almost everybody got acquitted.

The witnesses are being motivated by some influential persons like Manoj Pradhan (accused of 11 murder cases), MLA of G.Udayagiri constituency.

The court premises are dominated by the supporters of fundamentalist forces while hearings are made including influential political persons and hooligans with them. In many places the accused have not been arrested and they are roaming freely and threatening repeatedly to the victims and witnesses to withdraw the cases against them.

Security and Peace

The survivors are living under stress and strains. Threats, hate campaigns are regularly used to demonize the minorities. They feel insecure. In Bodimunda, the minorities are being treated as the 2nd class citizen and suppressed by the Sangh Parivar. The minorities are not allowed to raise their voice in a meeting or while collecting the water from tube well they have to wait till all the Hindus fetch. Even, they are allowed to rebuild their houses. The district administration claims that the normalcy has come after the four years of violence, which is found to be self-complacent. Undeclared social boycott could marked in at least 2-3 villages out of 17 the team visited i.e. Bodimunda. In some villages, conditions are imposed on minorities if they would be allowed to stay in the village provided that they withdraw the cases, convert into Hinduism and stop taking beef etc.

Fake Arrestees

The innocent peoples are arrested suspecting the killer of Laxamanananda and connecting them with Maoist which harasses victims and their family member. Seven persons accused of being Maoists and murdering Swami Laxamanananda namely Sanatana Badamajhi, Duryadhana Sunamajhi, Garnath Challanseth, Budhadev Nayak, Bijay Sanseth, Munda Badmajhi and Bhaskar Sunamajhi from Madaguda Gram Panchayat are suffering in jail for last 4 years. They belong to adivasi and dalit communities. In the meantime, 40 out of 42 witnesses have submitted their statements before the Court that the accused persons are innocent and not involved in the murder. The three times polygraph tests conducted on them proved nothing against them. The conditions of their family members are miserable. The police are deliberately prolonging the case claiming that all the witnesses had been motivated and, hence, arguing for re-deposition by the witnesses before the Court. Instead of searching of real culprits, the self-complacent officers are putting their entire weight on wrong targets.

by Venky Vembu Aug 29, 2012, First Post As Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi prepares for the State Assembly elections later this year, which he will likely use to pitchfork himself as a candidate for Prime Ministership, he perhaps knows that his every move, his every word and his every deed is being subjected to clinical analysis.

Any misstep, any off-message rhetoric will doubtless be amplified by his political detractors – of whom he has more than a few – which is why he has been extraordinarily disciplined in his public pronouncements.

For the most part, having consolidated his hardcore Hindutva base, Modi has been focussing in recent times on reaching out to voters in the middle ground by emphasising his record of having advanced development in Gujarat.

Gujarat fares the worst in terms of overall hunger and nutrition among the industrial States. Reuters.

The State under Modi has built on the industrial base that it inherited from earlier times, and notched up impressive double-digit GDP growth that is doubly remarkable given Gujarat’s high growth base (unlike the case with, say, Bihar, which has a low growth base).

Yet, there is one puzzle about Gujarat, an area of very uncharacteristic underperformance for a rich State, which has befuddled even the keenest analytical minds. This relates to Gujarat’s low ranking, relative to even some vastly poorer States in India, on critical parameters that define human development. In particular, Gujarat fares the worst in terms of overall hunger and nutrition among the industrial States with a high per capita income.

On the face of it, this is counter-intuitive. Greater wealth should lead to better health and nourishment. But this theory fails in Gujarat’s case. Even Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh gave voice to his sense of puzzlement that high levels of malnutrition persist even in pockets of high economic growth.

There is, of course, a history to this grim statistic, which predates Modi’s term in office since 2001, which renders it somewhat difficult for Modi’s detractors to use it as a political stick to beat him with. If anything, nutritional and general health standards are improving under his watch. Yet, the larger puzzle of why the statistics should be so bad in the first place has not been cracked.

Modi himself makes bold to answer that question, in an interview to the Wall Street Journal today. The interview is part of a bio-profile of Modi, which frames his political ascendance against the backdrop of a dysfunctional UPA government that has run the economy to the ground. (You can read the bio-profile, headlined ‘In slowing India, a fast-growing star’, here.)

It is the latest in a line of instances of foreign media entities familiarising their readers about the man who, in their assessment, could, under certain circumstances, be India’s next Prime Minister. It also shows up a Modi who is making the effort to seem accessible, and is tailoring his message to reflect the interests of the publication.

Thus, for instance, in the interview to Wall Street Journal, Modi hits all the right business-friendly notes. “Government,” he says, “has no business to be in business.” The tragedy, he adds, is that there’s no liberalisation going on.

Modi’s criticism is, of course, directed at the UPA government, which has been paralysed for more than three years now – and has turned the clock back on economic reforms in their entirety, and set the stage for an even more aggressive encroachment by the state into the domain of business. (But it could well apply to the BJP too, given that the party hasn’t embraced any recorms either.)

So far, so good. But when the journal seeks out Modi’s response on Gujarat’s chronic malnutrition problem, his answers seem uncharacteristically outlandish.

Mr. Modi attributes malnutrition problems partly to Gujaratis being largely vegetarian and partly to body-image issues among young women. “The middle class is more beauty-conscious than health-conscious—that is a challenge,” he said. “If a mother tells her daughter to have milk, they’ll have a fight—she’ll tell her mother, ‘I won’t drink milk. I’ll get fat.’ “

This seems wrong on so many fronts. And Modi’s response effectively trivialises a very serious health and nutritional issue that shames Gujarat in particular (and India in general, given that the pan-Indian picture is also far from glowing).

The problem of malnutrition in Gujarat (and elsewhere) that comes through in official data represents a rather more serious failing than can be dismissed as the result of young Gujarati girls being acutely conscious of their curves.

The third National Family Health Survey, the latest available, shows that in Gujarat, as many as 41.4 percent of children under three years of age were underweight. And about half of Gujarati children under five were stunted. Children in those age groups may be a little too young to be “beauty-conscious” in the manner that Modi suggests. In fact, the statistics for Gujarat on this count are marginally worse than the national average, which is doubly astonishing considering that Gujarat is one of the higher-income States.

Likewise, some 55.3 percent of women in the 15-45 age group were anaemic in Gujarat, which is about the same for women across India.

Gujarat also comes across as faring worse than the national average, and even some of the poorer States, on some other indices of health and nutrition,

As the Human Development Report of 2011 noted, the hunger status measured by the Hunger Index for some industrial states and states with high per capita income, including Gujarat, is worse than some poor states. “This suggests that economic prosperity alone cannot reduce hunger. Hence, there is a need for speciﬁc target-oriented policies to improve the hunger and malnutrition situation. Inclusive economic growth and targeted strategies to ensure food suﬃciency, reduce child mortality, and improve child nutrition are urgent priorities.”

Malnutrition, according to the report, reﬂects an imbalance of both macro- and micro-nutrients that may be due to inappropriate intake and/or ineﬃcient biological utilization. Poor feeding practices during infancy and early childhood, resulting in malnutrition, could contribute to impaired cognitive and social development, poor school performance, and reduced productivity in later life.

Malnutrition, it added, is a major threat to social and economic development as it is among the most serious obstacles to attaining and maintaining the health of this important age group.

For all its record of industrial advancement and relative prosperity, Gujarat is seriously underperforming on the health and nutrition front, and the larger index of human development. On these counts, it comes across as faring worse than a Jharkhand or an Uttar Pradesh, which have much lower per-capita income. And although the roots of the health and nutrition crisis in Gujarat date back to a time well before Modi’s term in offfice, the fact that such inequities persist under more than a decade of his watch may prove to his Achilles heel, which his political opponents will doubtless seek to exploit.

For all his discipline in communicating the developmental message that he wants to put out, Modi may have done himself a disservice in suggesting that Gujarat’s sub-par performance on the health and nutrition front is accounted for by anorexic girls who are beauty-conscious in the extreme. Such pronouncements only leave him open to the charge that he is trivialising what is at its core a life-and-death issue for many Gujarati children.

Amnesty International has accused the UK-registered mining company Vedanta of attempting to “gloss over” criticisms of its poor human rights record in the East Indian state of Orissa by publishing a “meaningless and hollow” report that puts forward the company’s own account of its operations there.

With the company staging its annual general meeting today (28 August) in London, Amnesty believes the “Vedanta’s Perspective” report is an attempt to calm investor fears over its controversial operations in India as it seeks to expand them.

Amnesty International has responded with its own briefing, Vedanta’s Perspective Uncovered: Policies Cannot Mask Practices, accusing the company of ignoring the reality of the mining giant’s impact on the human rights of local communities in Orissa.

For example, Amnesty International reports that Vedanta has not disclosed relevant information to local communities – such as the impact of pollution caused by the company’s activities, and has not held meaningful public consultations.

“Our new briefing exposes the glaring gap between the company’s assertions and the reality on the ground,” said Polly Truscott, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Programme.

“New evidence from the communities in Orissa shows that changes announced by Vedanta have had little positive impact on the livelihoods, rights, and other concerns of the communities on the ground.

“Vedanta’s human rights record falls far short of international standards for businesses. It refuses to consult properly with communities affected by its operations and ignores the rights of Indigenous peoples.

“Vedanta’s report claims to put new information on its activities in the public domain, but it glosses over most of our findings. It also fails to take into account investigations by Indian regulatory bodies, as well as authorities such as the National Human Rights Commission which has investigated Vedanta’s operations in Orissa.”

Amnesty International also finds it disturbing that those opposed to the company’s operations have faced fabricated charges, resulting in their imprisonment with the effect of preventing others from exercising their right to protest peacefully and freely express their views.

Amnesty International is also concerned about evidence, uncovered during an ongoing inquiry by India’s National Human Rights Commission, showing that police have sought to promote the interests of the company both in the framing of false charges and in the suppression of dissent.

Additionally, there have been at least two instances when the police, using a local Maoist presence as an apparent pretext, have harassed representatives of international media and human rights organisations and told them not to travel to Lanjigarh and the Niyamgiri Hills.

Amnesty International reviewed Vedanta’s changes against four criteria based on the United Nations Framework and Guiding Principles for businesses – and found that they failed on all four.

“The most revealing and meaningful indicators of whether Vedanta is making progress in addressing human rights issues must be based on what is happening, or not happening, on the ground in Lanjigarh and Niyamgiri,” said Truscott.

“Our detailed analysis shows little has changed. Vedanta may be making the right noises and have made a few changes, but the reality is that its new approach remains both meaningless and hollow. The company needs to go much further in demonstrating to its critics that its new approach will make a difference . Vedanta needs a reality check on human rights – and pressure from investors could help deliver this.”

On reports that Vedanta may have to temporarily shut down its Lanjigarh refinery for want of adequate bauxite supply from other sources, Truscott said: “This may be a short-term problem. What’s really at stake here is Vedanta’s human rights record.”

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Medical tests on children living in three towns near the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant found 45 percent of those surveyed suffered low-level thyroid radiation exposure. (photo: MidnightWatcher’s Blog)

The Nuclear Sacrifice of Our Children

By Helen Caldicott, Finding the Missing Link

28 August 12

hen I visited Cuba in 1979, I was struck by the number of roadside billboards that declared “Our children are our national treasure.”

This resonated with me as a pediatrician, and of course it is true. But as Akio Matsumura said in his article, our children are presently being sacrificedfor the political and nuclear agenda of the United Nations, for the political survival of politicians who are mostly male, and for “national security.”

The problem with the world today is that scientists have left the average person way behind in their level of understanding of science, and specifically how the misapplication of science, in particular nuclear science, has and will destroy much of the ecosphere and also human health.

The truth is that most politicians, businessmen, engineers and nuclear physicists have no innate understanding of radiobiology and the way radiation induces cancer, congenital malformations and genetic diseases which are passed generation to generation. Nor do they recognize that children are 20 times more radiosensitive than adults, girls twice as vulnerable as little boys and fetuses much more so.

Hence the response of Japanese politicians to the Fukushima disaster has been ludicrously irresponsible, not just because of their fundamental ignorance but because of their political ties with TEPCO and the nuclear industry which tends to orchestrate a large part of the Japanese political agenda.

Because the Fukushima accident released 2.5 to 3 times more radiation than Chernobyl and because Japan is far more densely populated than the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, and because one million people have died within 25 years as a result of Chernobyl, we expect to see more than one million Japanese casualties over the next 25 years. But the incubation time for cancer after radiation exposure varies from 2 to 90 years in this generation. These facts also apply to all future generations in Japan that will be exposed to a radioactive environment and radioactive food.

It seems that the people in charge in Japan are busily ignoring or covering up these ghastly medical predictions and deciding in their ignorance that people can return to live highly contaminated areas or else remain living there. Even areas of Tokyo are recording dangerous radioactive isotopes that originated in Fukushima in house-dust, in plants, and in street soil.

Thyroid cancers related to Chernobyl started appearing only three to four years post-accident (over 92,000 have now been diagnosed). Yet only 12 months post-accident in the Fukushima Prefecture, 36% of 38,000 children under 18 have been diagnosed by ultrasound with thyroid cysts or nodules (most of these lesions should be biopsied to exclude malignancy). This short incubation time would indicate that these children almost certainly received a very high dose of thyroid radiation from inhaled and ingested radioactive iodine.

These results bode ill for the development of other cancers because hundreds of other radioactive elements escaped which are now concentrating in food, fish and human bodies and inhaled into the lungs. Some elements are radioactive for minutes but many remain radioactive for hundreds to thousands of years meaning much of the Japanese food will remain radioactive for generations to come. Nuclear accidents therefore never end. 40% of the European landmass is still radioactive and will remain so for millennia.

So what should happen in Japan? These are my recommendations.

All areas of Japan should be tested to assess how radioactive the soil and water are because the winds can blow the radioactive pollution hundreds of miles from the point source at Fukushima.

Under no circumstances should radioactive rubbish and debris be incinerated as this simply spreads the isotopes far and wide to re-concentrate in food and fish.

All batches of food must be adequately tested for specific radioactive elements using spectrometers.

No radioactive food must be sold or consumed, nor must radioactive food be diluted for sale with non-radioactive food as radioactive elements re-concentrate in various bodily organs.

All water used for human consumption should be tested weekly.

All fish caught off the east coast must be tested for years to come.

All people, particularly children, pregnant women and women of childbearing age still living in high radiation zones should be immediately evacuated to non-radioactive areas of Japan.

All people who have been exposed to radiation from Fukushima – particularly babies, children, immunosuppressed, old people and others – must be medically thoroughly and routinely examined for malignancy, bone marrow suppression, diabetes, thyroid abnormalities, heart disease, premature aging, and cataracts for the rest of their lives and appropriate treatment instituted. Leukemia will start to manifest within the next couple of years, peak at five years and solid cancers will start appearing 10 to 15 years post-accident and will continue to increase in frequency in this generation over the next 70 to 90 years.

All physicians and medical care providers in Japan must read and examine Chernobyl-Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment by the New York Academy of Sciences to understand the true medical gravity of the situation they face.

I also suggest with humility that doctors in particular but also politicians and the general public refer to my web page, nuclearfreeplanet.org for more information, that they listen to the interviews related to Fukushima and Chernobyl on my radio program at ifyoulovethisplanet.org and they read my book NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT THE ANSWER.

The international medical community and in particular the WHO must be mobilized immediately to assist the Japanese medical profession and politicians to implement this massive task outlined above.

The Japanese government must be willing to accept international advice and help.

As a matter of extreme urgency Japan must request and receive international advice and help from the IAEA and the NRC in the U.S., and nuclear specialists from Canada, Europe, etc., to prevent the collapse of Fukushima Dai-ichi Unit 4 and the spent fuel pool if there was an earthquake greater than 7 on the Richter scale.As the fuel pool crashed to earth it would heat and burn causing a massive radioactive release 10 times larger than the release from Chernobyl. There is no time to spare and at the moment the world community sits passively by waiting for catastrophe to happen.

The international and Japanese media must immediately start reporting the facts from Japan as outlined above. Not to do so is courting global disaster.

Dr. Helen Caldicott is a pediatrician specializing in cystic fibrosis and the founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, part of a larger umbrella group that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.